Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said Wednesday that authorities had seized all production facilities of illicit stimulant captagon, which became Syria’s largest export under ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad.
In an interview with state television, Khattab said that “we were able to stop the production of this drug and seize all the materials and factories that were producing” captagon.
“There are now no more factories producing captagon in Syria,” he said.
Most of the factories, which he said numbered in the dozens, were located “in the Damascus countryside and a large number in the Lebanese border area” as well as on the coast.
“Most were in areas under the control of the former Fourth Division,” he said, referring to the notorious Syrian army division headed by Assad’s brother Maher.
Captagon became Syria’s largest export during the civil war that erupted in 2011, and a key source of illicit funding for Assad’s government.
Since his overthrow in December, the new Islamist authorities have announced the discovery of millions of captagon pills in warehouses and on military bases.
Last month, authorities said they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle out four million captagon pills, days after seizing another nine million that were headed for Turkey.
Neighbouring countries also occasionally announce captagon seizures.
“Shipments initially prepared for export have been intercepted” daily, Khattab said, noting Syria has begun coordinating with countries including neighbouring Jordan and Turkey as well as Saudi Arabia — a key market for the drug
The interior minister also noted other security challenges, including Islamic State (IS) group jihadists who according to Khattab had moved from “absurd acts… to studied attacks on strategic targets”.
Last month, IS claimed its first attack on Syria’s new government forces.
Also last month, Syrian authorities said they arrested members of an Islamic State cell near Damascus, accusing them of preparing attacks, while another anti-IS operation in the northern city of Aleppo saw the death of one security forces officer and three IS members.
Khattab said IS had also attempted “to carry out attacks against the Christian and Shiite community” that the authorities had thwarted.
Once in control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq, IS was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition.
Reported IS attacks in areas controlled by the Syria’s Islamist-led authorities have been scarce, while frequent attacks have persisted in areas under Kurdish control in the country’s north and northeast.
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